New Music · First Performances
A chronological record of new music and premiere performances in David’s work as pianist, chorus master and répétiteur.
2025
Mike Svoboda — Adam und Eva
Music Theatre · World Premiere · 2 May 2025
Rokokotheater, Schloss Schwetzingen · Schwetzingen, Germany
Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele
hr-Sinfonieorchester · Extrachor des Landestheaters Linz · SWR Experimentalstudio
Musical Direction: Mike Svoboda
Director: Andrea Moses
David’s role: Leitung Extrachor · Chorus Master
Commissioned by the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele in collaboration with Landestheater Linz, Adam und Eva is a new music-theatre work by Mike Svoboda, with a libretto by Anne-May Krüger after Peter Hacks. Written for six singers, actor, chorus, orchestra and electronics, the work reimagines the Fall as a story of freedom, individuality and self-determination. David prepared and directed the Landestheater Linz Extrachor for the world-premiere production, which opened the 2025 Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele.
2024
Jodi O’Regan — Making Wine
Song · World Premiere · 30 October 2024
Studio B, Spazju Kreattiv – Fondazzjoni Kreattività · Valletta, Malta
David’s role: Pianist · Concert Curator
Part of O’Regan’s Wine Songs, Making Wine received its world premiere during Connections in Valletta. The song formed part of a programme bringing contemporary Australian composition into dialogue with Maltese music and culture, and was presented alongside Blanc Dos as the first public performance of the opening two songs of the cycle.
Jodi O’Regan — Blanc Dos
Song · World Premiere · 30 October 2024
Studio B, Spazju Kreattiv – Fondazzjoni Kreattività · Valletta, Malta
David’s role: Pianist · Concert Curator
The second of the two Wine Songs premiered at Connections, Blanc Dos was presented alongside Making Wine as new Australian vocal repertoire. Together, the songs formed a contemporary strand within a programme conceived around cultural exchange and marking sixty years of diplomatic relations between Australia and Malta through music, poetry and performance.
Jesmond Grixti — Naivasha: Memories from the Lake
Maltese Premiere · 30 October 2024
Studio B, Spazju Kreattiv – Fondazzjoni Kreattività · Valletta, Malta
David’s role: Pianist · Concert Curator
Inspired by Grixti’s experience of Naivasha, Kenya, the work evokes the landscape and atmosphere surrounding the lake. Written by a Maltese composer based in Australia, its inclusion in Connections provided a particularly direct musical link between the two countries, with Memories from the Lake receiving its Maltese premiere in Valletta.
Franz Hummel / Susan Oswell — Der Findling
Music Theatre · World Premiere · 7 June 2024
Alter Dom · Linz, Austria
Bruckner Orchester Linz · Musical Direction: Markus Poschner
David’s role: Leitung Extrachor
Rather than a conventional biography of Anton Bruckner, Der Findling is a theatrical exploration of the composer’s personality and musical world. Hummel’s score ranges from avant-garde sonorities to more familiar idioms, incorporating transformed echoes of Bruckner alongside prominent brass, organ and extensive choral forces. Following Hummel’s death in 2022, the work was completed by Susan Oswell.
Reinhard Febel — Benjamin Button
Opera · World Premiere · 6 April 2024
Großer Saal, Musiktheater Linz · Linz, Austria
Bruckner Orchester Linz · Musical Direction: Ingmar Beck
David’s role: Deputy Chorus Master
Febel spent more than four years creating this large-scale opera, writing both music and libretto after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of a man ageing backwards. Its polystylistic score mirrors Benjamin’s journey across changing historical periods, moving between modernism, lyricism, late-Romantic references and jazz while exploring time, identity, ageing and mortality.
2023
Ernst Ludwig Leitner — … und das Lied bleibt schön – Eine Begegnung mit Anton Bruckner
For Chorus, Organ and Orchestra · World Premiere · 24 November 2023
Großer Saal, Brucknerhaus · Linz, Austria
Bruckner Orchester Linz · Chor des Landestheaters Linz
Conductor: Martin Sieghart
David’s role: Chorus Assistant
Written for chorus, organ and orchestra, with texts by Rainer Maria Rilke, Leitner’s work was conceived as a musical encounter with Anton Bruckner and anticipated the composer’s 2024 bicentenary. Its world premiere also marked Leitner’s eightieth birthday, bringing together the Bruckner Orchester Linz and Chor des Landestheaters Linz under Martin Sieghart.
2020
Ben Hoadley — Haratua
For Tenor Trombone and Piano · World Premiere · 2020
New Zealand
David Bremner, trombone · David Alexander Barnard, piano
David’s role: Pianist
Written during New Zealand’s first COVID-19 lockdown, Haratua explores the lyrical character of the trombone and reflects the stillness and solitude Hoadley experienced during April and May 2020. Its title refers to May — Haratua, the twelfth lunar month of the Māori year. The work won the 2020 SOUNZ Brass Composition Prize.
Abby Pinkerton — Crevices
For Trombone and Piano · World Premiere · 2020
New Zealand
David Alexander Barnard, piano
David’s role: Pianist
Pinkerton imagines a crevice as a miniature living environment: a fracture in rock gradually transformed by water, erosion, moss and persistent dripping into its own microcosm. Written for trombone and piano, the work was a finalist in the 2020 SOUNZ Brass Composition Prize, where it received a Highly Commended award.
2017
Stuart Greenbaum — Sonata for Oboe and Piano: Our Home Planet
For Oboe and Piano · World Premiere · 2017
Celia Craig, oboe · David Alexander Barnard, piano
David’s role: Pianist
Greenbaum describes the three-movement sonata as a journey from the familiar to the unknown: from Earth, through humanity’s impulse to explore, towards the outer reaches of the universe. Written for Celia Craig, the work combines Greenbaum’s cinematic, post-minimal musical language with influences drawn from classical music, jazz and popular idioms.
2011
Bryn Harrison — Five Distances
For Mezzo-Soprano and Piano · World Premiere · 9 October 2011
Leeds Lieder Festival · Leeds, United Kingdom
Charlotte Tetley, mezzo-soprano · David Alexander Barnard, piano
David’s role: Pianist
Commissioned by the 2011 Leeds Lieder Festival, Five Distances is a contemplative work for mezzo-soprano and piano. Its concise, spatially suggestive texts and subtly repeating musical material create a sense of landscape, distance and passing time, reflecting Harrison’s wider compositional fascination with repetition, memory and altered perceptions of musical time.
